Several people have asked me to address how these ideas of ridding yourself of desire, enlightenment and twin flames fit together. I thought it would be a great blog topic since I was very confused about the idea of desire as it pertains to enlightenment for years.  I was confused about the idea before I even knew what twin flames were and found myself on the twin flame path.

Before I found myself having the twin flame experience which culminated into union with my twin, I spent over ten years meditating and trying to, not only see through my past conditioning but also get rid of desire and the attachments I had.  I did this because this was the advice given by some of my meditation teachers and was written in many of the spiritual texts that I was reading about finding Truth.  Many say that it is imperative to relinquish all desires in order to attain Enlightenment or Self-Realization.

Getting Rid of Desire to Attain Enlightenment

I considered this idea of “getting rid of desire” for many years, while I meditated. I was often troubled by this idea, yet I respected the advice of enlightened sages, and I wanted Truth more than I wanted more ego entertainment and the suffering that caused.  At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure what the ego was either.  I thought I knew, but seeing through it fully now, It is obvious how confused I was.  So even though my mind was dissolving through meditation, it adhered to the story that in order to find Truth one must shun all desires.  I mean, who was I to question the enlightened sages?  So that was what I attempted to do: rid myself of desire.

I will admit, at times, it felt really good to shun desires.  But I found it was impossible to rid myself of all of them.  I mean, I wanted to eat, I wanted to sleep, did I not?  Were those not desires as well?  I examined my desires, all of them.  I looked deeply at each one and questioned them all.  I looked at the root of them to see where they were coming from. 

What I did not realize back then was that this story that I absorbed from others about needing to rid myself of desire for enlightenment to occur was just another story the mind was holding onto and trying to conform to. 

Stories are what prevent Truth from naturally emerging.

All these ideas about relinquishing desire to attain Enlightenment were mental stories that continued to keep separation in place.  And I found that all stories must be seen through, even stories about relinquishing desire.

What happens when people wake up to the nondual Truth (where there is no separation) is that they often tell people the way to wake up is strict adherence to the same path they took.  If an attempt to rid themselves of desire is how they did it, they tell others that is the path they must go to do it themselves.  The problem with this idea is that Consciousness loves variety and even loves to surprise itself in the ways it wakes itself up through each identification/persona.  Some even spontaneously wake up without any spiritual work done or desires relinquished whatsoever.

What I am getting at is just because a certain path to Enlightenment worked for someone,  it does not mean you have to follow that path exactly, or you will not move into Truth. 

The ego does not get enlightened anyway.  The “ego,” which is just a set of stories the mind adheres to, dissolves completely when all stories are seen through.  The mind still exists in the end; it just can no longer take any story seriously anymore. 

All stories have all been through to the origin of the mind itself.  From this space, the mind has seen through and digested itself full circle.  It still exists.  It can play in ideas and stories and enjoy the game of duality, but it does not attach to any idea.  It has become disassociated with all of them.  So all stories concerning this idea that you need to get rid of desire to know Truth melted away once enough of the mental stories did.

So what exactly is the relationship between getting rid of desire and enlightenment then?

When you focus on the mind and its desires, ideas, and beliefs, you begin to trace those things back to their inception.  You begin to see through all the layers that make up your conditioning and block you from perceiving the infinite Light of the nondual Truth that is underneath all those things.  The mind begins the self-digestion process to uncover what is false and transient to fall into what is real and permanent.

This digestion process takes you within the mind instead of having the mind turned outward, looking at the world and desires.  For some, it is much easier to shut out the world and desire in order to go deeply within. 

It is hard to go within deeply if your mind is being pulled outward towards the world and desires.  This is why many go into seclusion while they are on a spiritual path.  It helps us to stay focused.  To me, this is the purpose as to why people shun desires while going through this process.  But there is a drawback.  At least there was for me.

The problem is that as you forcefully shun all desires, you are also shutting out the heart’s desires, and you are “throwing the baby out with the bathwater,” so to speak.  The heart is tied to Truth, and only when the heart opens more and more mental restrictions loosen, is this seen more clearly.

To relinquish all desire can lead to immobility and contraction

When I was deep into the spiritual search, I had to go back through my mind and examine and all of its stories.   In the very beginning, I had an experience in a restaurant that was a major glimpse into Truth that set me on the spiritual path. I spoke about that glimpse here:  https://www.quora.com/When-did-you-first-experience-your-awareness-was-not-stuck-in-your-head/answer/Amy-Bergh-1

Due to that experience, no stone could be left unturned.  I was determined to see through it all.  Many more glimpses came as my mind digested itself more and more through this process for many years. 

I did what so many spiritual seekers do.  I kept attempting to kill my ego so I could see through all desires and let them all go.  But the funny thing was, I did not realize that I was following my desire by doing this. 

I was looking for Home.  I desired to know Truth above all else.  In my mind, I knew I was deceiving myself, in part, because I was not as fulfilled as I could be at that time.  I could not figure out how to untangle myself from these last tentacles of mind. I could not figure out how to release all desire.  How would I live in the body if all desires were gone?  Wouldn’t I be dead?  What would happen to the mind at that point?  Would it disappear completely? What about being comfortable, happy, and fulfilled in life? 

Then it dawned on me why I started the spiritual search, to begin with.  It was so I could be happy and fulfilled.  I wanted happiness, above all else.  As I began to see through these stories about the need to let go of all desires, something amazing happened.

I realized that desires are God-given.  The Universe expands due to one thing: Desire.

One day during a particularly insightful meditation session, it occurred to me that desire is what created duality and the world itself.  And that by shunning desire, I was not expanding, I was contracting.  This was why I was not feeling fulfilled.

I saw many times during meditation that Consciousness moved outward from itself to create “other” to expand, and experience itself.   You could say that Consciousness became bored with itself so it created friends.  It created duality.   Zero became one, then two and so on.  I knew this.  I saw it occur through my mind beyond time and space every single time I went into meditation.  It is always occurring in the Now.  And I saw how it occurs in every moment with every mind that stays asleep to the origin of itself.  And most are asleep because their minds are so covered over in ideas that they cannot perceive the origin of the mind and Truth itself. 

So why would I be shunning desire?  It suddenly seemed completely illogical for me to do so.  Why would I want to contract and stop desire if the purpose of life itself is to expand the Universe?

Our entire existence is due to desire.

I also understood that some of us have to go way back to the beginning when it comes to understanding desire and how it relates to the nondual Truth.  We have to let go of many things we are holding onto before we can come to these sorts of conclusions.  So for many, shunning desires is what is needed for a time, until they too, can come out of that story and see the mental limitation, that it too, is casting over the full nondual Truth.

To wake up fully is to wake up out of all stories of limitation.  The idea that you need to shun desires is one of those stories.

It is not so much that we need to give things up as much as we need to see through them.  Seeing through them is the most important thing.  Knowing what our beliefs and mental stories the mind adheres to is what helps us to see through them to the final Truth of what we are our core, which is limitless light and freedom, free of any darkness or shadow of story.  We do not need to tear ourselves away from life or reject wanting to be fulfilled or move away from desire itself.  That is unless we want to. 

What if your main desire is to shun all desires?

Then you are fine. Go for it.  Some people really get off on doing that, and it works for them.  For me, it was great for a time and helped me to see through a lot, but it was not something I was meant to do long term. I saw through this in the end.  This idea that I needed to rid myself of desire was another mind entanglement that was eventually digested and dissolved into the Light of Truth.

Holding down heartfelt desires can be like trying to hold a ball filled with air underwater.  It can lead to illness, disease, or even aberrant behavior.  And even in some religious groups, as we all know, there is aberrant behavior due to extreme shunning of desires. 

Better to allow yourself to move towards your heart-felt desires in a healthy way so that energy can diffuse naturally as those desires and dreams have the hopes of being fulfilled.

So it is less about letting go of them and more about seeing through them.  If you know the root of your desires, you have entered into a deeper phase of self-awareness.   Self-awareness leads to more self-acceptance. Self-acceptance leads to happiness and freedom.

The stagnation of being “desireless”

For several years I had given up many of my desires, and I was content, but overall not fulfilled.  I was sitting still, not moving in life.  I was stagnating in a strange place. I had stopped moving, seeking. Did I want something else?  Yes, sure.  I thought about what it would be like to have certain things in life that would excite me and make me feel fulfilled.

Part of the reason I got on the spiritual path in the first place is that I was tired of pleasure-seeking and pain avoidance.  I wanted off that hamster wheel.  So to move beyond desire is where I planted myself for quite some time. I did not allow myself to entertain the idea of moving towards things that would lead to moving outward into self-fulfillment too much.  Whenever those thoughts would come up, I would ignore them.  But, of course, they kept coming up.  I would naturally fantasize about what I would love to have in life.  It worked like a massive gravitational pull that I had no control over.  I could see beyond desire, but the mind was still moving towards it.

Shunning my heartfelt desires was like holding that ball underwater that kept wanting to pop back up.  My mind was holding my heart down.  It was not working to bring me happiness. I was not living. I was merely existing. I had seen through so much of the mind that nearly all suffering was gone, but still, I was not in the happiest place I could be.  I did want more but I did not allow myself to take an active role in seeking anything.

In Comes My Catalyst Twin Flame

I was in this immobile phase for several years.  It was during that time when my catalyst twin appeared in my life.  He contacted me online.  I wrote about that meeting here:  https://www.quora.com/After-the-death-of-a-loved-one-did-anything-ever-happen-that-made-you-KNOW-they-were-okay/answer/Amy-Bergh-1

Meeting him changed my life drastically.  Not only did I not expect to have an intense connection with a stranger, but I was not even looking for anything romantic at all.  The Universe planted him on my path when I least expected it, and we started to have many strange things occur between us.  I had never even heard the term “twin flame” or know what twin flames were when he came into my life.

During this phase, I began to embrace the idea of desire because I was seeing through the stories of desire that I had been stuck in.  As I saw through those stories more and more, I began to allow myself to dream about things I wanted in life.  Not just having to do with him, but life general.  I began to dream about how I wanted to live my life.  I began to work on manifesting things I wanted.  I was finally allowing myself to dream again.  And the colors of my dreams were much more vivid and exciting than I had ever experienced.

I started having experiences where I could feel the energies certain objects.  For instance, I started feeling the energies of tensor rings, orgonite, and certain crystals.  This made absolutely no sense to my mind as to why this would occur, but it was happening. I started having psychic experiences, and I even experienced the paranormal and telepathy through this twin flame connection.  I felt strongly drawn to get into art again, something I loved when I was younger but felt I never had time to do. 

I was dreaming at night in vivid color, and I began seeing creations in my head that I wanted to make.  I was allowing myself to hope and wish for things when I had shut desire down for so many years so I could see through all the facets of my mind.  Suddenly I was fantasizing in kaleidoscopic color through my mind and fully loving it.  My mind had become so clear of past conditioning that now everything I was dreaming about was like painting over a brand new canvas.  Doubts, stories of limitations, and fears were not in the way these new imaginings. 

I set up an art studio in my garage and began making crystal pyramids and painting.  I was entering into the self-love phase, something that I now find so valuable and view as a precursor to union for twin flames.  I was beginning to nurture and honor myself even though my (catalyst) twin flame was not moving towards me.  Since I could not pour it into him, I poured love into myself instead.

Before my spiritual search, I tried to do manifestation practices, but they lost their resonance when I found meditation.  Back then, I wanted to find Truth too much to keep practicing manifestation.  I was not into creating more layers of ideas or seeking new experiences.  I wanted to clean off that dirty canvas and see what the origin of my mind was. I wanted to know why I was here at all. I wanted to go back to the root to find what Truth was.  I knew creating more ideas or having new experiences would not take me there.  It would just keep covering over what needed to be cleaned up.  I was done with all of that.  At the time, I did not understand how finding Truth and manifestation were related.  Now I do. 

Understanding Manifestation

Now I understand why people have such trouble with manifestation.  It is because too many stories and doubts are clouding their heartfelt dreams and wishes.  They have trouble manifesting their heart’s desires because the unconscious mind is still too dark with past conditioning that needs to clear.  Because their focus is cloudy, they often manifest things that are not fully in line with their hearts.  Their minds are too much in the way.  Meditation cleared that out for me.  So manifestations, after meditation, became much more powerful and in synch with my heart and I know this is what led to my twin flame union.  Because in the end, a twin flame union is even a manifestation through Consciousness.

When I finally met my real twin, and we went into union, many dreams that I had came true.  For instance, not only did I get the amazing mutual love that I so desired with all my heart that comes with a twin flame union, but even our lifestyle fit so many things I dreamed about — helping people on their spiritual journeys for one.  Here I am doing it and living someplace else with more rain, which I am regretting wishing for now since we live in the Pacific Norwest, and it rains almost nonstop here in the winter. I am over that one!  But wanting to live somewhere with more rain came true too.  I fantasized about fixing up old houses, which my twin was into when we first met. So we worked on that together.  So many of the puzzle pieces of my dreams and fantasizes manifested with our union.  And not to mention my twin, my dream person.  He fit all the traits I so wanted in a man and life partner.  So many things fell into place like the Universe had been listening to me intently and designed what I wanted so perfectly.  Perfectly, imperfect that is.  Because we are far from perfect.  But such is the nature of nonduality and duality mixed into one.  This is Truth, as it is.

When you allow yourself to focus and dream about your heartfelt desires, they can come true.  But they can come through much easier and more in line with your dreams if you have seen through your mind and its dark layers of limiting stories.

The best advice I have for twin flames or anyone on a spiritual journey to enlightenment is to attempt to see through the stories your mind holds to.  Know that in the final light of pure Truth, no story can be held.  It is pure light beyond any dark shadows of story. Attempt to see through all stories so your heart can run free.  You do not need to shun desires, unless you desire to, of course!  Attempt to see through those stories as well.  Anything that is not making you happy, attempt to see through the stories behind it so they can fall away and you can enter into freedom.

In the end, Truth is about freedom and infinite happiness, and there is no story in there that you need to box yourself in with.  If you want to box yourself in with stories, go for it.  But you don’t ever have to.  This is what true freedom is.

Your true Self has always been free of story; it is only the mind that creates and lives through them.

We are both the true Self/God and its transient movement of mind.  There is no separation. From my end, to attempt to separate desire from its creator is impossible.

And if you are a twin flame, this what you are beginning to wake up to. Desire is what pulls twins together and, in the end, what wakes us up to the final Truth.